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My 14-day Journal for a 2 Week Break- By a Serial relationship sabotager


Shell112

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Hi, my name is Shell and this my 14-day journal for no contact. My boyfriend is feeling stressed by me and I don't blame him. I am feeling a little stress from him too. He asked me for a two-week break.

 

You see... I have a problem. I have been sabotaging relationships for years, and that is why I will never be in anything serious. This cycle is common for me and I know that my relationship will die. If not this time, it will eventually. I don't know why I have this thing where I constantly pick at relationships and try to end them a ton of times. I can't help myself. I have a bad case of word vomit. Eventually, my partner always gets sick of it. Hopeful, that perhaps this time I'll learn my lesson. I can say this truth because here I am anonymous and it feels good to admit this flaw out loud.

 

After just a year I have pushed my ex into requesting a two-week break. Once again I felt my need to pick at a relationship. I do feel like a bulk of this is my fault. However, I also acknowledge that my feelings are valid. When I picked I was feeling bad about something. I just always jump to the extreme of trying to end the relationship when I am upset. There is no in-between. I know how to not do it, but I can't help myself once I'm comfortable. I don't know if anyone else does this, but it's one thing I would really like to change about myself. Why do I do it? I don't know. I honestly don't want to do it. How do I stop?

 

So right now is day 1 of our two-week break. I'm sure people will post oh he just wants to hook up, or this is a nice way of breaking up with you.

 

I am in my mid-thirties and he is in his early forties and I don't' believe this was done for any childish reason like that. I do believe that he needs to reflect. I agree I initiated his feeling of wanting to do this. Yesterday, I picked and jumped to the extreme let's just end it once again. I know that he is tired of me doing that. I believe he wants to miss me as he said. I know that I need to stop. I'm not innocent. I also know that this break might be the end.

 

I don't want to worry about what he is doing or not doing. I want to commit to really not contacting him at all for two weeks and that's what this journal is about. It's about talking about my cravings to contact, and self-reflection. Don't get me wrong I know that he did things too. That's why I got upset. He's not perfect. But this journal is about self-reflection, not what is wrong with him.

 

Right now I feel calm and ok with this. I told him I agreed. I want to use this time to reflect and miss him and sort out what this relationship should be if it should even be, and how I can be better on my end for him or for my next one. Maybe I can finally not sabotage a relationship after this time in reflection.

 

Of course, it is only day one, and I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow or the next day. But I am committed to no contact during this crucial phase.

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What did you pick at and what word vomit did you get into with him?

 

It's good that you're conscious you sabotage the relationships, it shows self awareness, but I agree with HollyJ that professional help could really have a big impact in your change.

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What is it that triggered you this time?

 

And yes, I have an ex who did this too. I eventually got fed up and left for good. Mind you, he had other underlying issues that fueled this compulsion to escape emotional intimacy, but it was far too draining on me to extend any more patience or compassion.

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Agree . A consultation with a therapist is a great way to change unwanted self defeating behaviors. However some may be a choice like being a "b" in order to control and demand your way.

 

Also after the ride to grandma debacle it's not surprising he broke up. Many people have these epiphanies after they get dumped because it hurts and their ways finally caught up with them.

If you really wanted to change your life, you would seek professional help. I think that it is incredibly selfish and cruel for you to do this to people. You love drama!
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Agree . A consultation with a therapist is a great way to change unwanted self defeating behaviors. However some may be a choice like being a "b" in order to control and demand your way.

 

Also after the ride to grandma debacle it's not surprising he broke up. Many people have these epiphanies after they get dumped because it hurts and their ways finally caught up with them.

 

I remember the ride to grandmother thread. That gives a lot of context to this situation. And I agree... Sometimes being dumped can lead to epiphanies and the realisation that you either change or the cycle of pain will continue.

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Before people judge me on my grandma that was not a ordinary part of relationship. I just found out my Grandma was going to die and I wanted my best friend with me because I have no other family and expected he would be there for me as I concidered him my family.

 

I was not controlling in this relationship that was not our regular routine, that was a grandma going to hospice to my acting out based on the news that I was going to lose my grandmother. Shame on you people this is my journal. We all deal with loss of people in different ways.

 

Our relationship evolved around of an equal balance of us both doing what we wanted to do we had set it up that way. I'm not some selfish nagging girlfriend that constantly demanded my way by dangling break up. I have an issue with communication and jump to the end of the world.

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counseling and seeing a professional would be more helpful to get to the crux of this and giving you more advanced tools to overcome this.

 

From a lay person:

1. you do this because of an inner unhealthy insecurity that manifests itself as something simliar to "i don't deserve this" or feeling nobody coudl genuinely like you long-term - so you sabotage it before it's time to escape it. In essence, it's easier to swallow to feel you pushed them away, then they left you on their own because they "found out the truth about you" and rejected you.

 

2. its very likely that somewhere in your past and especially early on, before you started systematically sabotaging your relationships, you gave it your all and somebody broke your heart. So this is a defense mechanism to ensure you never get broken hearted again and have to go thru that immense pain.

 

The bad news: you can continue with this "pain prevention" approach and manage pain. But it means you'll never find what you ultimately seek - a true long-term companion.

The good news is: you acknowledge and recognize you are self-sabotaging this. So that's 85% of the battle to change if you truly want to change bad enough and are willing to do the work to get there - it's no cake walk. Since you are already "pre-managing pain" or have chosen to do that, however, there is a good chance you would choose not to go thru the pain and hard work to change it.

 

I hope you choose to change, put yourself back out there, and do the hard work to make a change. I decided to do that about 10 yrs ago. And yes it's taken 5-10 yrs to get to where i am today. yes it was hard. But man it's been ABSOLUTELY worth it and thensome! I gladly trade 5-10 yrs of work (the first 3-5 is the hard work.. the rest is just tweaking as you go with little things that come up) for the great time i'm having the rest of my life!

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Just to chime in here, from what you wrote: therapy, therapy, therapy.

 

You've isolated what you see as a problem—your instinct to sabotage. Depending on where you go from here, that can be a big step forward, a baby step forward, or an excuse to stay in exactly the same place you're currently in.

 

A lot of alcoholics know they have a drinking problem, after all, while continuing to drink. A lot of them use alcoholism as an excuse to keep drinking.

 

So the big question is whether you really want to fix this problem or if you want to date men (or post on forums) as a sly way of continuing to coddle and enable it. Admitting it felt good, as you said. Doing the work to change it—well, that won't feel so good. Heavy lifting. Sore muscles. To say nothing of shining a light on whatever is going on under the hood to trigger this behavior.

 

Richey delivered a nice lay person's read on the latter, so I won't bother to do the same. Maybe that resonates, maybe not. You'll let us know.

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Day 2

 

I said I wasn't going to talk about the bad parts of him, but to heal I feel I need to write them down.

 

Yesterday I was sad and I blamed myself I was self loathing. I told myself I had a problem. Today I don't feel that way. Every time I broke up with in the past, I really did want to break up with him. My problem isn't breaking up with him, my problem is having confidence in my decisions. I do mental mind tricks and find ways to blame myself and everything is me.

 

Fact, of the matter, is that my boyfriend is insensitive. He is not thoughtful, he does not think about me. My grandma was just part of it. No one knows the awful response he gave to my initial request. The inhuman response I got when I told him I just found out my grandma was going to die and I didn't want to be alone.

 

My boyfriend is not thoughtful. In our whole year together, not one time, not even our first date was anything suggested because of what I enjoy or like to do. We rarely did anything that I liked to do. We mostly did things he wanted, or I wanted to do something I had to make it appeal to him somehow. There always had to be something in it for him. If it was not appealing to him it would be a 20-30 minute convincing talk which resulted in dragging him along. On a rare occasion to his surprise, he discovered he enjoyed whatever I dragged him to.

 

He's a simple guy he likes drinking, eating a limited selection of food, and watching sports. That's it. We don't have anything in common.

 

It i want to go to a bar they always they had to carry his favorite drink or he didn't want to go. He didn't want to try new food. Once I got him to go to a place i really wanted and he made sure to let me know he hated it the entire time thus ruining the whole experience for me anyway. I have gotten so used to everything being on his terms now when I suggest anything I know I have to make it appealing to him off the bat, fight about it, or just argue in a loop that ends with us staying home and then him complaining that we never go out, when all we do is go out.

 

We couldn't even watch a single tv show together in the entire year we were together. Not for more than 15 minutes. I tried. I told him I wanted to get into a show together. I tried to find things that I thought would be interesting to him. I even asked him to pick something. In our entire year together we didn't watch a single thing on TV together for more than 15 minutes. Instead, I asked him to get headphones many times over a year he never bothered to. He would sit in bed watching something on his phone and make it louder than my tv. He didn't think of me. So I bought him headphones he complained he didn't like them and refused to use them. He also woke me up much time with his TV on the phone and refusal to get headphones, even on days when I had not slept at all.

 

I make a 1/3 of what he makes. Yet I spared no expense I took him to his favorite thing in the world for his birthday, kept it a surprise to the very end, baked a cake and arranged for people to bring it out. He didn't eat it, he threw it out after one bite. I did the same for Christmas I got him something with him in mind spared no expense. For Christmas, he got me a gift card to a store I never mentioned, and would never shop at, not even to something I liked. I felt like it was a re-gift. A month before my Birthday while on the trip I got him for Christmas I offered to pay for myself the entire time, he said no he liked paying for me, but in the middle of a dinner at a place he chose that was to his liking that we were going to go to regardless in the very middle of it he announced that was my Birthday present. It was not a place I would ever pick, I wasn't taken out special for my birthday. He didn't plan anything, he didn't think of me in the least bit. it was just they were out so this is your gift and I'm going to put it on this gift card this client gave to me. Your Birthday is a month from now, but this is it.

 

The fact of the matter is my boyfriend was not thoughtful. When I broke up with him it was for this very reason. Inside I know I don't want to spend my life with this person. I'm not even allowed to talk about things he's not interested in. He talks over me and I can't finish my thought or saying what bothers me. It's not my problem. He's an ass and I don't want him back.

 

I deserve to be with someone who at the very least takes me out for my Birthday.

 

I don't want him back just doing any contact.

 

Also connected to me my dog that i love very much. He enjoyed aggrivating my dog and did it all of the time despite me asking to stop repeaditly. He put his foot up his but in bed which would make my dog snap. He seemed to get a kick out of it because he always did it. He did it until he got a reactionf from my dog and got upset if i didn't punish my dog for something he instigated. My dog is very sweet and loving and docile and he tolerated it quite a bit. It takes a lot to make him snap.

 

I don't want to be with him.

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This is not the place for journaling. There is a specific area on the site for this purpose.

 

Don't really understand why you were with this guy, if he behaved in this manner. This should have been done long ago. Why did you choose to stay for so long? You are also complicit in this.

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With all due respect. When you people write about day, 1, 2, 3, in your not main no contact thread you are journaling your days the same way. It is appropriate because this is my way of doing no contact. I am in the no contact forumn If you dont' want to read it then don't.

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So....are you sabotaging relationships or are you not getting out of really bad relationships fast enough?

Going by your second post .... sounds more like your real issue is codependence and a broken picker rather than sabotage. It's like you know you should dump him, but...then you don't. Instead you put up with being treated like dirt and turned yourself inside out trying to please him and buy his approval.

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Whoa, I am not codependent. Why because I stayed in a bad relationship for a year? My relationship wasn't only bad.

 

How many people on this forum stay in bad relationships or are longing for their less than perfect relationship back. Their relationship broke somehow. It is common knowledge that people in the relationship don't see the same as those looking in. Are you going to blame every single person on here for being in their relationship that didn't work out? For not leaving it the second things went bad? For not giving their relationship the benefit of the doubt that things will progress and grow into a relationship that serves both individuals.

 

Additionally, I agreed to a break, I didn't put up some fit. I didn't grovel. I know it's going to be hard but I agreed to it. I know there are issues and by writing them down I can self reflect. I don't know how I'll feel at the end of two weeks but it helps to voice positive and negative. Today I feel mad, sure days from now I'll be missing him and thinking of all good things. It's the cycle of a breakup and grieving.

 

Does that mean I should get back with him, today I feel a strong no? Or He might not want to get back with me.

 

But really I can't know until I am able to complete NC. It depends on if real changes will happen or not or if this cycle will just continue. Voicing things out loud helps me figure out what I need to change about myself and if I can. What I did to contribute to this "break".

 

What will his perspective be when we meet again, is he willing to change, what did he learn? I don't know.

 

We have never done a break before this is my chance to feel confident in my decision without him in the way. Of course, no contact is useless if you can't use the time to reflect, think about these things and decide if anything can change. I'm reflecting. I think anyone else in NC needs to as well.

 

The past two months have not been good, simultaneously i am dealing with a lot of non-relationship issues that have made me very hard to be around.

 

Of course, there were good parts to my relationship too that kept me there and I loved him and wanted to do things. Today I want to say all of the bad things. It is helping me make sense of everything.

 

I am in no way dependent on that man. I have my own business, my own apt, my own friends, and I was the one that would skip a few weekends together to go on a trip with friends. He has no friends, I am his entire social media that he posted there. if anyone is dependent on anyone it was him on me, but that didn't make him thoughtful. In his defense, he did try at times.

 

I already said my issue. I don't trust myself. I rationalize why my decisions are wrong, and I think that I might sabotage my relationships.

 

In all honesty, I regret posting on this site it is not the same as it was when I last used it years ago. It's just a bunch of people waiting to attack and belittle a poster who came here for emotional healing and to post for no contact. Where is the support?

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This wasn't a "second," it was a year! As long as you see yourself as victim, you will continue to choose the same type of guy.

 

You need to stop being so defensive and see YOUR part in this. I would bet money that you have a pattern of dating the same type of guy.

 

I too, believe you are co dependent. You chose a guy that was dependent on you. I suggest you look up the definition.

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Actually Holly I have never dated this type of guy. I thought my past problem was that I was close-minded on the type of men I dated so I gave this one a go.

 

So you are wrong. Also, I don't know why you are still on my thread as your opinion is that it should be removed.

 

You make a false assumption that the entire year was bad. I listed some bad things and reflected on things i may not have noticed (like him not doing things I wanted do), during the relationship I wasn't so keen to understand that he wasn't doing things that I wanted to do without an entire conversation. By managing to convince him to do some of my things I thought we were doing things that I wanted as well. That is why this break is a time of refleciton.

 

it is your assumption that was the entire span of my relationship. My Birthday has not even reached yet so most of the things I posted occured in the past two-thee months. You assume we didn't talk about things and convince each other that things would change.

 

Obviously if when I started dating him and he put his foot up my dog's butt I would have kicked him out of my house.

 

I didn't choose a guy that was dependent on me on purpose. Nor have I ever dated a man with no friends. I found it odd but went with it.

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I hope that you do understand that we are trying to help you. I also agree that some posters jumped on you a bit unfairly, but lets move past that. Delving into your personal issues and motivations is not a pleasant task and really do admire and commend your courage, especially doing so on an open forum.

 

"I am in no way dependent on that man. I have my own business, my own apt, my own friends, and I was the one that would skip a few weekends together to go on a trip with friends. He has no friends, I am his entire social media that he posted there. if anyone is dependent on anyone it was him on me, but that didn't make him thoughtful. In his defense, he did try at times."

 

I'm afraid your understanding of what codependence is, isn't accurate. Being codependent in relationship terms has nothing to do with finances, it's an emotional state. The term is kind of counter intuitive to be honest. Co dependents are actually the nurturers, the helpers,the givers, the fixers of the relationship. Does that sound more like you? I think so. Like when you went out of your way to do things for his b-day and Christmas. I mean doing these special things is OK by itself, but it's not OK when your partner shows zero consideration or reciprocation of your efforts. Codependents actually feed selfish partners through their giving nurturing nature and selfish people, narcissists in particular, actually very much seek out that type of personality. He is the vampire, you are the source of his blood. You actually correctly identified that he was dependent on you for friendship BUT that he also didn't reciprocate or show any real consideration for you. Not on big events, not in every day life.

 

If you actually do some research and read up more on this subject, I think it might be tremendously helpful to you and really open your eyes about the dynamic in your relationships and how it comes about and why.

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